Mark 5 · a question people ask
Why did Jesus let the spirits go into the pigs?
Mark doesn't say. Here is what the chapter tells. After "My name is Legion, for we are many" (5:9), "He begged him much that he would not send them away out of the country" (5:10). "All the demons begged him, saying, “Send us into the pigs, that we may enter into them.”" (5:12). "At once Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and they were drowned in the sea" (5:13). Those who fed the pigs fled and told it (5:14), the people came and saw the man "sitting, clothed, and in his right mind" (5:15), and they heard "what happened to him who was possessed by demons, and about the pigs" (5:16). Then "They began to beg him to depart from their region" (5:17). Matthew tells that Jesus "said to them, “Go!”" (Matthew 8:32), and Luke that they begged him "that he would not command them to go into the abyss" (Luke 8:31). None of the three gives Jesus's reason, or says what became of the spirits after the pigs, and these notes don't supply one.
The verses
“The demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of pigs.” He said to them, “Go!” They came out and went into the herd of pigs; and behold, the whole herd of pigs rushed down the cliff into the sea and died in the water.”
“They begged him that he would not command them to go into the abyss. Now there was there a herd of many pigs feeding on the mountain, and they begged him that he would allow them to enter into those. Then he allowed them. The demons came out of the man and entered into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.”